Grandma

"I love you, sweetie." A shrug. The point of a finger. A child-like grin.  That's what I remember and hold in my heart.

I will be eternally grateful for following my instincts, cancelling piano lessons and heading to the hospital this summer when I received the call that Grandma had fallen and was in the hospital.  It was a good visit.  As good as a hospital visit can be, I suppose.  The kids were mostly patient and well-behaved and Mike took them to the waiting room when they got too antsy.  I think he knew as well as I did that this would probably be our last visit with her.

I can't say how I knew, but I just felt peace and I knew we had said our good-byes and it was okay if we didn't make it back for another visit.

My heart aches knowing that my last living grandparent is gone, yet I am so thankful that she is no longer suffering.

Day's Eye and Industrious

It never ceases to amaze me how well my children's names fit their personalities.  Daisy and Amelia have birthdays in June so I've been thinking a lot about what makes each of them special.

Daisy is our sunshine girl.  When I think of "day's eye" (the meaning of her name) I think of sunshine.  It was no coincidence that she was born on the summer solstice.  She has the natural ability to brighten the room when she walks in.  Daisy also has the baby-of-the-family goofiness.  When I looked up celebrities who are also babies of their families I found every name listed was a comedian.  No surprise there!  She makes us laugh and smile every day with her antics.  Whether making a "wormstache" or simply choosing her own wardrobe, life with Daisy is certainly a lot of fun. 

 

Amelia means "industrious" which certainly fits her perfectly. She received the "leader" award for her kindergarten graduation this year.  When I need help around the house she is the first to offer her assistance.  Often if I simply suggest "We should clean our rooms today" a little while later she will come get me to see what she's done.  While the rest of the kids were procrastinating or complaining, she was hard at work cleaning her bedroom.  Amelia is wonderful with kids.  I will be shocked if she doesn't go into a field where she works with children.  She is also an excellent artist and very creative. Her self-portrait of what she wants to be when she grows up was by far the most detailed and colorful of her class.  She has a kind and caring heart and is constantly bringing me the sweetest notes with drawings of herself and me saying "I love you Mome." While Daisy may be the sunshine of our family, Amelia is the rainbow.

The girls in 2009 

At their dance program Spring 2012

As they celebrate their birthdays this year, I am reminded of how blessed I am to have two amazing daughters in my life.  Each brings her own unique personality to our family and it is so fun to see them grow into such wonderful little people.

Ten Years of Motherhood

Ten years ago I celebrated my first Mother's Day a week overdue with my first child.  I think the doctor jinxed me by setting an induction date for the Monday after Mother's Day and saying I wouldn't even need it because I'd certainly have my baby home by then. Caleb seemed to take that as a challenge to stay put for as long as possible.  May 13, 2002 we welcomed our first child into this world.


Tomorrow I not only celebrate ten years of being a mom, but I also celebrate Caleb's tenth birthday.  It's amazing how quickly the time has gone.  It seems only yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital and calling grandma to come over and entertain him at 2am when he was wide awake and his parents were too exhausted to stay up with him.


Now he's two inches shy of five feet tall and challenging his five-foot-two grandma that he'll pass her up by his next birthday.  He probably will. It's been fun to see him grow into the young man he's becoming.  I love looking through old pictures from when we were doing construction on our house and seeing Caleb right next to my dad complete with his toy hammer and nails "helping" build.  He's always been a great helper.

Auntie Kelsey and Caleb 2005

Gone are the chubby toddler cheeks that were so sweet to smooch.  They've been replaced with the face of a boy.  Just the other day I saw him running across the gym with his class and thought to myself how "grown up" he looked.


Caleb has never been one to get excited over things.  He's very even tempered and easy going.  For him, being excited means an extra sparkle in his eyes and a slightly wider grin.  I saw that sparkle when my brother invited him to go to Washington, DC with his family.  I wasn't sure how he'd react to the invitation since he's very much a homebody, but that sparkle was there immediately when he realized what that "fake" airplane ticket meant.


It was there again when he opened his birthday present a week early.  He found this lego set in one of his books that he really wanted; The Crystal Reaper. We found it on ebay for over $200 brand new which was way too much for our budget. There was one used set that was up for auction and ending that night and I told him we could try to bid on that one.  He sat in my bedroom while I was on the computer waiting to see if we won.  I gave a heavy sigh when the auction ended and he said, "We didn't get it did we? That's okay mom." And went down to bed.


Little did he know that I actually won it for him.  As he was opening his gift we could see him slowly realize what it was that he was opening.  That sparkle and grin were there when he rushed over to me, wrapped his arms around me and said, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  I love you mom."  Money well spent to see him that happy.

 So tonight we are going out with grandma to celebrate ten years of motherhood, ten years of grandmotherhood and a tenth birthday. My how the time flies!

Do It Yourself

I tend to be a "do it yourself" kind of girl.  Not the "You should have your own show on HGTV! That is so cute how you did that!" kind of girl, but the "I don't have time to wait around for someone else to assemble/hang/move/etc this so I'll just do it myself" kind of girl.


Don't get me wrong, my husband is perfectly capable of helping out and doing this sort of task for me, but I tend to grow impatient waiting for his help and it's much easier to just do it myself. I'm sure part of this stems from when he was deployed and I didn't really have anyone home to help me. The kids were 3, 2 and 5mos when he left so they weren't much help. Yes, my dad and mom live next door, but again, I would be stuck waiting for someone else's schedule to open up and fit me in. That queen-sized waterbed and pine cabinet wouldn't move themselves to the basement. That bookshelf wasn't going to move to the other room all by itself. So rather than waiting for help, I did it myself.


These past weeks have been full of little projects. After getting a second shoe cubby for our entryway, I decided I needed hooks for the kids' coats and backpacks above them. So I bought some and put them up. Then I decided it would be nice to fill the space between the ceiling and the hooks with a dry erase/magnet board/cork board/calendar organizer I found, so I put that up as well. The final touch to that wall was to move the kids' school pictures to either side of the board. It seems off-balance for my symmetrically-oriented brain since Daisy isn't in school yet and I don't have an 8x10 of her, but I am forcing myself to be okay with it. Eventually I may have her draw a self-portrait to hang in a frame in her "space" until she starts kindergarten, but for now it's going to be okay.

Wall above the shoe cubbies

Since there are no vehicle repairs to suck up our federal refund this year, we are going to be finishing our bedroom. We need to install the pine ceiling and the laminate flooring, add trim and window treatments and we're set! Yesterday we went to IKEA which is one of my all-time favorite stores. We don't get to the cities very often so we decided to go ahead and purchase a shelf, chair and ottoman for our room while we were there. These were my projects for today.

Projects 1 and 2: The Chair and Ottoman

Finished! Total time: 45min

Project 3: The Shelf (not pictured-the wicker boxes)

Finished! Total time: 45min

My favorite comment of the day was from Brady: "Mom, is that your new shelf?  And you did it all by yourself?  That's awesome!  It's really cool that you can do that by yourself."


My fourth project for the day: Write and post this blog while enjoying my new chair an ottoman. :)  Done.